


Define "Stay at Home"

by JayDelahaye



Series: As It Should Be [6]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Babyfic, F/M, Kidfic, stay at home dad, tentoo's adventures in parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 16:31:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3388568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayDelahaye/pseuds/JayDelahaye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor, work at a *job*? Nah. Not when he can have more fun at home with his kids.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jamie

**Author's Note:**

> I recently shared my headcanon with hardythehermitcrab that Tentoo would spend more time at home with his and Rose's kids, but because a) he's the Doctor, and b) he has a TARDIS, the definitions of 'stay' and 'home' would be pretty wibbley-wobbley. Set in the same 'verse as The First Sleepless Night and The Hot Parents, there's one chapter for each of their children that I've imagined.

It wasn’t until Rose had sat down at her desk at Torchwood for the first time in a year that it dawned on her.

She’d just finished her maternity leave, and the Doctor was now taking time off from his job at the university, staying at home with their son Jamie. As she was settling back into her office, it suddenly occurred to Rose that this ‘happened’ to coincide with a rather crucial stage in the development of their new TARDIS. 

She picked up the phone.

“Hi Rose!” The Doctor was whispering but still sounded chipper. “Checking up on me already?”

“No, no, just had a question,” Rose said, knowing full well he’d be able to tell she was kinda-sorta lying. “Why are you whispering?”

“I don’t want to interrupt Jamie. He’s assembling a temporal stability lever.”

“Our one-year-old is assembling part of the TARDIS console?”

“Well, I say ‘assembling,’ I really mean ‘sticking the parts together randomly,’ but he’ll get it eventually. He’s smart.”

“Doctor…”

“Don’t worry, it’s not attached to anything, it’s just the casing and mechanical bits. Big parts, can’t be swallowed, nothing sharp. If he gets it before lunchtime I’ll install it myself while he takes a nap. Oooh! He’s got those two pieces together properly, the rest will be easy. Sorry, you had a question?”

“I think that answers it.” It could have been nerves, but Rose was about ready to burst out laughing. She managed to keep a straight face long enough to sign off. “Have a good day, Doctor. I love you.”

“Love you too!”

And then she collapsed into giggles.


	2. Sarah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Featuring Jamie, age 7, and Sarah, age 4.

 

Much was being made of Rose Tyler’s gold-digging househusband, ever since Sarah was born and the Doctor followed up his year of paternity leave with a sabbatical, ostensibly to write a book. Evidently, the impressive collection of publications, research projects, and glowing teaching reviews he’d amassed over the past ten years (on top of the less-public accomplishment of saving the world with Rose a few dozen times) meant nothing next to being a man taking time away from work to raise his children.

Still, the Doctor wasn’t much bothered by it, just thrilled to have a new addition to their family, and over the moon that she was ginger. By the time she was four, Sarah had a gorgeous head of bright red corkscrew curls. If the Doctor couldn’t be ginger himself, at least he could live vicariously through his daughter’s hair.

Also unlike her father, Sarah was incredibly polite, and had a hard time saying no to people. While Rose and the Doctor were gently trying to encourage her to be more assertive, the Doctor couldn’t practice what he preached when it came to Sarah - he was unable to deny his little girl anything, which is why Rose found half a dozen small, fluffy, alien rodents in their living room one afternoon.

“Please tell me Tribbles aren’t real.”

“Don’t be silly,” the Doctor scoffed. “These are Torrebs, completely unlike Tribbles. Not even close to the _inspiration_ for Tribbles, which, I’ll have you know, are far more trouble than Captain Kirk could ever imagine.”

“Except they have lots of babies too!” Sarah piped up, holding a brown ball of fluff out to her mother.

Rose carefully took the Torreb from her daughter, and it quickly snuggled up into her chest. They really were rather cute. “How many of them did you bring back?” she asked, noticing another pack of puffballs wandering in from the backyard.

“Two, one for me and one for Jamie!”

“And how long ago was that?” Rose aimed this question at her husband.

“Erm, we’ve been home from Jarket 6 for an hour, maybe?” He scratched the back of his head. Sarah chased after a few Torrebs that were heading outside.

Rose did some mental math, given the time they’d been here and approximately how many Torrebs were sniffing around their sitting room, assuming that there were plenty more out of sight. “Doctor…” she warned.

“Don’t make me do it, Rose.”

“You know you have to.”

“Can’t you tell her?”

“Oh no. I’m not going to be the bad guy here.” The puppy dog eyes were not working on her this time. “And I’m not helping you round them up.” The Doctor sighed dramatically but she could tell he was joking, he’d put on his Dad Face and find a way to tell Sarah they have to bring all the Torrebs back to Jarket 6 without her bursting into tears. Rose was still holding one of the critters, and it chirped at her happily. Maybe just one…

“Did you know they can reproduce asexually?” Jamie appeared with a Torreb of his own. “If they go too long without company they can alter their biology and-”

Okay. Maybe not.

 


	3. Michaela

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Michaela, age 2.

“Hello?” Rose called as she came in the door, kicking off her shoes. “I’m home!”

The house was quiet. Too quiet. And then there was giggling from upstairs. Rose followed a trail of suspicious purple slime up to the bathroom, which was also the source of the laughter. 

“Mummy!” 

Her toddler was splashing about in the bathwater, tinged purple from the slime, along with a pale blue alien child about the same size. The Doctor was up to his elbows in slime, suds and shampoo, lathering up the alien’s black hair. Michaela chose that moment to make a break for her mother.

“Whoa there, Miss Mickey!” The Doctor shot an arm out to keep her from sloshing herself and half the water out of the tub. “Let’s not get Mum all wet, okay?”

“We went to Goo Zone!” Michaela exclaimed. “I went on all the slides and jumped in the big puddles and made new friends! This is Skeska!”

“Goo Zone?”

“It’s an amusement park. Designed so kids can get ridiculously messy in a safe, contained environment,” the Doctor explained, carefully rinsing Skeska’s hair.

“Contained. Right.”

“I may have let them pick out toys at the gift shop and one of them exploded. In the backyard, though, not the house.”

Rose was relieved; after the day she’d had the last thing she needed was a goo explosion in their sitting room. “Where are Jamie and Sarah?”

“In the backyard with Skeska’s parents and her brother. They spent their honeymoon on Earth but haven’t had a chance to come back since, so we brought them over for lunch. They were just packing up when the goo exploded.”

Rose grabbed a towel so she could scoop her increasingly excited daughter into her arms and dry her off. Michaela gave her a damp hug around the neck and Rose inhaled the sweet scent of soap on her soft skin. “You should have come Mummy, it was so much fun!”

“Maybe next time, sweetheart,” Rose said, exchanging grins with the Doctor.


	4. Jack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Featuring newborn Jack, 3-year-old Michaela, 5-year-old Sarah, and 8-year-old Jamie.

Just three months ago, Rose went into labour during an increasingly difficult set of alien trade negotiations, because babies are known for their impeccable timing. She’d managed to hand things over to another operative fairly seamlessly, but the deal had somehow fallen apart and the aliens were refusing to talk to anyone but her, newborn be damned. Rose went into the new talks fuelled by intense irritation at having her precious family time interrupted - it was summer holidays, so the other kids were home from school and getting to know their new baby brother. She and the Doctor had been up all night with Jack, and now she was stuck dealing with cranky child-like aliens and he was stuck with cranky alien-like children, both on their own, instead of facing one or the other together, like they always did.

The anger drove her barrelling through the meetings in less than a day, daring the other side to say anything as she laid down the law and drove home triumphantly, just barely missing supper. That was okay. The kids were used to wonky schedules with the TARDIS, and Jamie was even getting acclimatised to the timeless sensation of the Vortex. The Doctor would have something ready to warm up whenever she was hungry. 

She dropped her things at the front door and wandered into the living room, dark but for some warm, flickering light glowing from beneath an elaborate blanket fort. Rose smiled and lifted the edge of a blue-and-white striped sheet, crawling in to join her family. 

“How’d it go?” the Doctor asked. He was leaning on a pile of pillows against the edge of the couch, Jack sleeping peacefully on his chest. 

“I kicked some butt,” she said, grabbing a few cushions of her own and curling up next to him, stroking Jack’s downy hair. “Missed you guys.”

Every pillow and cushion from every bed and couch in the house had been piled into the fort, creating a soft surface for them to sprawl on. Abandoned colouring books, snacks, and toys were scattered about the kids as they watched a cartoon on the television, which the whole fort was draped around. As soon as Rose was settled in, Sarah climbed into her lap, and Michaela started telling her about their day. Jamie grumbled that he couldn’t hear the show and Sarah retorted that he was paying more attention to his sonic screwdriver anyway, and Jamie insisted he was perfectly capable of doing both, thank you very much, and Rose remarked that he sounded an awful lot like his father. 

“All right, settle down, the lot of you,” said the Doctor, smirking at Rose and kissing her forehead. “Jack stayed fussy all day, but the TARDIS grew a playroom. It’s the only reason I’m still coherent right now. There’s pizza in the fridge.”

“Perfect,” Rose sighed, resting her head on the Doctor’s shoulder. “Nothing alien at all today?’

“Other than me? Nope.”

“Even better… wait. Isn’t this film from Clom?”


End file.
